As an artist, Paola Cenciarelli’s vocation lies in her urge to “experiment”. There is nothing she likes better than to mix different materials, as she did with a painted porcelain plate, where she added a ceramic peacock. Furthermore she excels in techniques just as the traditional “trompe l’oeil” for optical illusions: in one particular work she painted the “fragments” of an “old faience dish”, as if the pieces had been broken and newly glued together, and this design she finally combined with her original painting.
As well as this type of art work, she is also specializing in painting the most astonishing scenes depicting cloud formations and dramatic sky portrays: beautifully floating blue heavens and firmament. Not to forget the green hues: On the back of a vase she seems nearly to master as many diverse green colour tones as South American Indian tribes have words for the different greens found in their jungle. She is also famous for painting incredibly “real” looking folds in textiles, renaissance lace and collars, ornaments adorning a princess’s hair style and many more specialities not to mention her works in gold.
The use of many diverse polished metals on the chess figures, one vase with golden patterns in a large variety of precious metals and the diligent use of ephemeral gold-leaf on her beautifully shaped “Vase with an Amazon” – all these works show her mastership in these subjects.
She has also implemented the new technique of applying sand on her pieces to create a special relief structure and an interesting basis for placing some more layers of transparent colours on top of this ground. More than enough reasons to call her book “Fire your Fantasy!”
